Actionable Knowledge - Publications - Faculty & Research

05 Jul 2023
HBS Case

What Kind of Leader Are You? How Three Action Orientations Can Help You Meet the Moment

hand. Ironically, a leader’s past success can often become their greatest liability. Ryan Raffaelli, the Marvin Bower Associate Professor at Harvard Business School, says leaders often fall into one of three “action orientations” that govern how they take View Details

Keywords: by Ben Rand

07 Dec 2021
Op-Ed

Want to Build Better Leaders? Focus on Mindset, Skills, Knowledge

can do and build additional capacity, the organization must create the space for the leader to gain clarity about conscious and unconscious beliefs they hold. An understanding of those beliefs and how they inform actions is critical to... View Details

Keywords: by Hise Gibson and Shawnette Rochelle

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Browse All Articles, Research, & Case Studies - HBS Working Knowledge

Reduction Act. He explains the U.S. EPA’s role in balancing climate action with economic development, while promoting environmental justice. David also offers insights on career opportunities at the intersection of business, climate, and... View Details

03 Jan 2023
Book

Confront Workplace Inequity in 2023: Dig Deep, Build Bridges, Take Collective Action

back up and running, many women are asking: What’s it going to take to effect real change? According to Tina Opie, visiting scholar at Harvard Business School and author of Shared Sisterhood: How to Take Collective Action for Racial and... View Details

Keywords: by Pamela Reynolds

1994
Chapter

The Role of Technology in an Information Age: Transforming Symbols into Action

By: R. L. Nolan and S. H. Haeckel

Keywords: Information Technology; Information; Knowledge

Citation

16 Jun 2003
Research & Ideas

Researchers Contribute Globalization of Markets Papers

bias blinds them to local issues. And companies often fail to adequately check the actions of their local managers. Standardized Products, Universal Values? Global Product Standardization? Although there is a general perception that... View Details

Keywords: by Working Knowledge editors

20 Oct 2021
Blog Post

Mobilizing Private Sector Action For Racial Equity in Milwaukee: SE Summer Fellow Zach Komes (MBA 2022)

the world this summer to develop skills and knowledge while having significant responsibility and high impact. What were you working on this summer? This summer, I worked with the Metropolitan Milwaukee Association of Commerce (MMAC),... View Details

May 24, 2016
Article

Build a Culture of Health

By: John A. Quelch

Every company, large and small, has an impact on health. It does so in four ways: first, through the healthfulness and safety of the products and services it sells; second, through its attention to employee health and well-being in its work practices and benefits;... View Details

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23 Oct 2019
Working Paper Summaries

Decarbonization Factors

Keywords: by Alex Cheema-Fox, Bridget LaPerla, George Serafeim, David Turkington, and Hui (Stacie) Wang

November–December 2020
Article

Getting Serious About Diversity: Enough Already with the Business Case

By: Robin Ely and David A. Thomas

Leaders may mean well when they tout the economic payoffs of hiring more women and people of color, but there is no research support for the notion that diversifying the workforce automatically improves a company’s performance. This article critiques the popular... View Details

Keywords: Diversity; Organizational Culture; Organizational Structure; Change; Trust

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2012
Chapter

Creating Leaders: An Ontological/Phenomenological Model

By: Michael C. Jensen, Werner Erhard and Kari L. Granger

The sole objective of our ontological/phenomenological approach to creating leaders is to leave students actually being leaders and exercising leadership effectively as their natural self-expression. By "natural self-expression" we mean a way of being and acting in any... View Details

Keywords: Leadership Development; Attitudes; Behavior; Experience and Expertise; Knowledge Acquisition

Citation

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May 2011
Article

The Power of Small Wins

By: Teresa M. Amabile and Steven J. Kramer

What is the best way to motivate employees to do creative work? Help them take a step forward every day. In an analysis of knowledge workers' diaries, the authors found that nothing contributed more to a positive inner work life (the mix of emotions, motivations, and... View Details

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2011
Working Paper

Organizations in the Shadow of Communities

By: Siobhan O'Mahony and Karim R. Lakhani

The concept of a community form is drawn upon in many subfields of organizational theory. Although there is not much convergence on a level of analysis, there is convergence on a mode of action that is increasingly relevant to a knowledge-based economy marked by porous... View Details

Keywords: Knowledge Sharing; Organizational Culture; Civil Society or Community; Boundaries; Information Technology; Theory; Value Creation

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29 Nov 2022
Research & Ideas

Is There a Method to Musk’s Madness on Twitter?

and Prosperity to New Cities Is A/B Testing Effective? Evidence from 35,000 Startups Feedback or ideas to share? Email the Working Knowledge team at hbswk@hbs.edu. Image: iStockphoto/hapabapa View Details

Keywords: by Christina Pazzanese, Harvard Gazette; Technology

09 Feb 2019
News

Trump's war on immigration is sacrificing his best weapon against China

Research Summary

Vicarious Learning in Organizations

To advance the study of how individuals learn through their interactions with others, Professor Myers has adopted a vicarious learning theory lens. Vicarious learning allows individuals to learn from the outcomes of others’ experiences, rather than solely their own... View Details

Keywords: Learning And Development; Learning; Health Industry

18 Dec 2019
Book

6 Skills That Wise Companies Harness for World-Changing Innovation

Unit. From practical wisdom to action The book expands on the authors’ original theory that companies build organizational knowledge by turning tacit knowledge, which people learn through personal... View Details

Keywords: by Kristen Senz

Reshmaan N. Hussam

Reshmaan Hussam is an associate professor of business administration in the Business, Government and International Economy Unit, a Faculty Research Fellow at the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER), and a faculty affiliate at the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty... View Details

April 2011
Article

Why Leaders Don't Learn from Success

By: Francesca Gino and Gary P. Pisano

We argue that for a variety of psychological reasons, it is often much harder for leaders and organizations to learn from success than to learn from failure. Success creates three kinds of traps that often impede deep learning. The first is attribution error or the... View Details

Keywords: Learning; Innovation and Management; Leadership; Failure; Success; Performance Evaluation; Prejudice and Bias

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